Metal forming toolpacks are utilized in the ironing apparatus for manufacture and form of metallic can bodies or cylindrical metal bodies and preforms. The metal forming toolpack is commonly constructed of various modules utilized to control the tooling arrangements to produce beverage or food containers integral within the metal forming apparatus of the ‘draw(n) and iron’ press or ‘wall ironer’. The toolpack may include multiple modules which house and integrate the ironing tooling(s) to iron and form the metal thickness of specific geometrically shaped metallic bodies.
Existing toolpacks are limited by configuration and use of mechanical springs or Urethane type spring replacements in fixed radial locations. The limited locational action provides a fixed directional force rate which has no adjustability, nor any discernible communication with the process. Different spring rates are only changed with significant machine down time, mechanical exchanges of spring elements through operator intervention, and significant guess work by skilled analysis. These dampening limitations cause significant degradation of product quality, resulting in lower production speed and efficiency
The Global unit production of aluminum and/or steel beverage containers and bottles is approximately 200 billion units per year. More than 90 billion units are produced in the United States each year. The speed and accuracy at which these billions of metallic containers are produced with such high volumes in complex manufacturing systems, requires the utmost accuracy and manageability of total product population variation.
Manufacturers control the container weight to the milligram and the measurement of the container walls are held within microns. This is simple if making only a single unit, but much more difficult for manufacturing billions. Approximately 400 units are produced every minute on a single apparatus. Factories are typically using over 8 to 10 of these metal forming machines in a line. As such, the entire production line speed often exceeds 2,000 cans per minute. Manufacturing billions of units thus requires extremely high precision and control to ensure that the least amount of material is being utilized, with lowest variations in wall thicknesses. Any variation is multiplied by millions of units rapidly multiplied material misuse. It is important not to make mistakes or mismanage any variation rapidly due to high speed to maintain a consistent and competitive end unit cost.
Those skilled in the art of producing billions of such units understand weight control and management of variance across 200 billion units is an ideal aspect of conserving required materials and optimized production facility efficiency that drive most competitive unit cost basis. Therefore, the interaction of the toolpack and ironing process variance dictate the material weight distribution and is critical to ideal process management outcomes over billions of units. The lack of external attenuation control or adjustment in current production systems, and a limited capability to optimize ironing process variance, negatively impacts speed of production and quality of the product being produced.